Thursday, May 20, 2010

I'm headed back to work full time for one month only. I'm looking forward to being in the classroom every day just to see if I can deal still enjoy it over a sustained period. Same students every day. Grading. Four whole weeks of getting lunches ready at night so we can all be out the door by seven thirty.

One thing I love about being a sub is not having the same schedule everyday. I've noticed in my life that new places, new opportunities interest and enliven me. Can I stay interested and enlivened everyday? I know all these students well having subbed for them on and off for the whole year. So what I'm looking for is the newness that comes with knowing people more deeply, enjoying more of the nuances of the their character and personality.

It will be a little like enjoying music in our house. Chongo plays the same C.D. every day for about a month before he moves on. Right now it's Pink Floyd "The Wall" just because it was sitting around. Every day the music grows a little dearer, both more familiar and newer -- a musical motif, a lyric -- to perk up my senses.

So here's to the mundane, to the new becoming old becoming new again. I'll let you know how it goes.

What do I know?

I was educated among the palm trees. I learned from the wind how to sail and to hold my papers down with rocks. I knew how to sleep in a hammock and how to eat cashew fruit without staining my shirt. Now I live in the US -- kids, a mortgage, a job in the school system, and a place on the PTA. Education has become my passion and I'm still learning as I go.